


No ballad will be written

by targaryen_melodrama



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Post finale?, Post-Canon, ah yes the tagging skills leave the brain when you enter another fandom, or like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22091782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/targaryen_melodrama/pseuds/targaryen_melodrama
Summary: “What?”James can feel Thomas staring at him. He knows his words are unexpected.“I said I’d want a choir. For my funeral. If I could have one.”
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Comments: 11
Kudos: 59





	No ballad will be written

James can feel Thomas staring at him. He knows his words are unexpectedーnot just because they’d never talked about those things before (no time, no place, no _each other_ ), but also because of how hastily Thomas had turned towards him. It didn’t quite match the relaxed, content atmosphere of the Sundays they spent in bed together, mostly reading and sleeping. 

Mostly.

“What?”

“I said I’d want a choir. For my funeral. If I could have one.” James turns to face Thomas, raises a hand to trace the lips he was kissing not five minutes ago. 

“You’d want a church choir at...your funeral?”

James’ lips turn up into a slight smirk. He understands Thomas’ confusion even more now. Neither of them had been very...church inclined. Not before, and most certainly not now.

“Not a church choir, no. It was during my days with Madi’s people,” he explains. “I...I heard a few songs from a different type of choir. Not exactly like the choirs we knew. Not at all, actually. I didn’t hear a lot from them at first. I don’t think they trusted us enough for that. Don’t think they wanted us around for their ceremonies.”

“Then?”

“Then Mr. Scott’s funeral. We were all there. The way they sang, the way their voices filled the air, it was likeーit was like…” For a moment, James swears his skin is island-clammy, the sun is burning his neck, and his crew is at his back. “It was like they filled the entire island,” he says, almost gasping. “Like somehow the air and wind around them, around _us_ , allowed them to take over, to sustain us for a while. It was its own living, breathing thing. Alive and powerful.”

“I’m not quite sure I can give you that,” Thomas says, and James is brought back.

“I know. ‘M not quite sure I can have a funeral in the first place. Can’t bury a ghost, my love.”

Thomas still seems quite confused, though James knows he’s been listening intently.

“But if...if I could tell you my final wishes, how I want my body disposed ofー” their hands find each other at that, still needing an anchor whenever separation was mentioned, “ーI’d want a choir, I think.”

James looks back down at Thomas and his eyes are clearer now, the uncertainty slowly but surely fading away. It’s been a decade and James forgotーor didn’t allow himself to rememberーhow good they were at this. How good _Thomas_ was at this. How James didn’t always have to find the words, to fully explain what he meant.

Here and now, James remembers. He can see the understanding dawn on his husband, sees it settling in Thomas’ eyes, bittersweet. 

There wouldn’t have been a funeral for either of them before. James would have bled out, drowned at sea or been hung (though that last one was the least likelyー James would’ve rather bled out for hours than be _caught_ and hung). And Thomas would’ve tired out, would’ve fizzled out under the Georgia sun and been buried the next morning, with a stick for a tombstone and weeds for flowers.

But here, _now_ , wellー

“I’ll sing something,” Thomas says quietly. “It won’t be as lovely, butー”

“But it’ll be good, love.” It won’t be a choir, it won’t be voices rising so beautifully James thinks they could reach the god he doesn’t believe in, but it would be something. There would be someone. God knows how James will leave this world now that Flint is no longer sailing the seas, but he won’t leave it alone. There would be Thomas. 

“It’ll be perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been able to write much outside the MCU, but this ~~horrible~~ wonderful show and its ~~heartbreaking~~ beautiful ending inspired me over a year ago and I never posted it. 
> 
> Title from No Choir by Florence and the Machine (which fits the two of them/Flint's journey as a whole quite well). 
> 
> I am on [Tumblr](http://targaryenmelodrama.tumblr.com)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic of] No ballad will be written, by targaryen_melodrama](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28547940) by [TheOneCalledEli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOneCalledEli/pseuds/TheOneCalledEli)




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